180 A. EF. Vervill—The Bermuda Islands. 592 
way, to shrubs and young trees. Goats have always been kept on 
the islands, but they were, in early times, very apt to die suddenly, 
apparently from eating poisonous plants, including tobacco, so that 
they have never been very numerous. The paucity of vegetation on 
some of the smaller islands, like Goat Island (or Charles Island) is 
probably due mainly to the pasturing of goats on them. 
d.— Destructive Lifects of Drouths. 
There can be no doubt but that the unusually severe drouths 
that occasionally occur, even on continental lands, serve to destroy 
vast numbers of native plants that grow in the drier places, and in 
some cases those that live even in bogs and swamps, in case these 
become dried up. On islands of small extent, with a thin, dry, 
porous soil, drouths are still more disastrous, fer there is no great 
reserve of moisture in the soil, and besides this, the less common 
plants are generally localized in but few limited spots, so that if 
these dry up the species is liable to become extinct. Probably this 
has repeatedly occurred at the Bermudas in the past, before their 
settlement, as well as since, and many plants that had established 
themselves there for many years may have been exterminated in a 
single exceptionally dry season.* This would affect chiefly the 
plants of the uplands ; those of the bogs and seashores would suffer 
much less. 
The cutting away of the forest trees, thus exposing the light thin 
soils to the blazing sun, undoubtedly increases the destructive effects 
of drouths to a very great extent. 
* During a long and very severe summer drouth, which occurred at Bermuda 
in 1849, it is recorded that a large part of the cisterns and wells failed, all grass 
and other green herbage disappeared on the hills; the sage bushes lost their 
leaves ; and even the cedars turned yellow. Many cattle died and numerous 
people were ill with intestinal diseases. (Hurdis.) 
There was scarcely any rain from May 18th to July 31st. This same drouth 
extended over the northern United States and British America, and in Canada 
vast forest fires occurred, so that the dense smoke, like a fog, extended all the 
way from New York to Bermuda. 
Undoubtedly many localized species of plants might easily be exterminated 
by a drouth like this, even in a much larger and more varied country than Ber- 
muda, but our lists of plants living there before that time are too impertect to 
determine how many disappeared then. 
A prolonged winter drouth occurred in 1875, causing great damage to the 
crops and other vegetation. Many of the cisterns failed at that time. Copious 
rain came the last of March, otherwise there would soon have been very great 
losses. (Jones.) 
